Minutes later, a helicopter arrived and in a dramatic rescue the men were helped into a dangling rescue basket before being transported to Coastguard Queenstown's nearby boat.
The entire spectacle - a well-planned rescue demonstration to coincide with the official launching of Coastguard Queenstown - took about five minutes and was proof of the benefit volunteer coastguards would be to anybody in trouble on the lake in the future.
The launch of the service on Saturday was attended by all Coastguard Queenstown volunteers, and included representatives from Coastguard New Zealand, the Queenstown Lakes District Council and the Queenstown Airport Corporation.
Coastguard New Zealand president Ian Cord, of Auckland, said the unit would not have been possible in Queenstown without the tremendous community support - ‘‘people who simply want to give a little back to the area where they live''.
He said the aim was to provide high quality marine search and rescue services to Lake Wakatipu and also boating education services.
The Queenstown unit's patron, Grant Dalton, Emirates Team New Zealand general manager, could not be at the launch, but in a video link said he was proud to be the patron of the new service.
‘‘I'm down in Queenstown a lot and when I look out on the lake sometimes on a really windy day . . . I often wonder what would happen to people who got into trouble.
‘‘[The coastguard] is a great cause and it's overdue.''
Queenstown Lakes District Council deputy mayor John Wilson, of Wanaka, said the community was ‘‘incredibly indebted'' to the backers and volunteers, particularly to Coastguard Queenstown president Jay Berriman for getting the service running.
Mr Wilson said an incident about 45 years ago, which saw him land on the front page of the Otago Daily Times under a headline ‘‘Irresponsible youths almost drown in Lake Wanaka'', helped him appreciate the introduction of the coastguard service.
He said the headline was ‘‘very much the case'' after a planned ‘‘romantic'' boating trip went disastrously wrong, when he and his nine companions capsized their boat at 10pm and spent 45 minutes in choppy and cold water in the middle of the lake, before being rescued.
Mr Berriman said Saturday was ‘‘a very proud day''.
The coastguard boat was given a traditional Maori blessing before Christine Hill, wife of businessman Michael Hill, christened it with a bottle of sparkling wine.
